Had some extra cash on my last shopping trip And splurged on some sausage and shrimp. Jumbalaya will be happening this week.

And I have seasoned crawfish shells in the freezer to stock-ify and mate with chicken in an étouffée later. Time to get back into roux-crazed Cajun dishes.

Sadly, wild crawfish are not as prominent in the streams and lakes here as they once were and the little buggers are spendy to buy. But lobster is regularly on sale as cheap/cheaper than sale haddock, so I am going to make some Down East gumbo/étouffée and make no apologies.

Comedy option: throw a dinner party with this stuff, sell a rifle to help fund a Cajun accordion, arrange some French-Canadian folk tunes for it, and have possibly the best party ever.

Had some extra cash on my last shopping trip And splurged on some sausage and shrimp. Jumbalaya will be happening this week.

And I have seasoned crawfish shells in the freezer to stock-ify and mate with chicken in an étouffée later. Time to get back into roux-crazed Cajun dishes.

Sadly, wild crawfish are not as prominent in the streams and lakes here as they once were and the little buggers are spendy to buy. But lobster is regularly on sale as cheap/cheaper than sale haddock, so I am going to make some Down East gumbo/étouffée and make no apologies.

Comedy option: throw a dinner party with this stuff, sell a rifle to help fund a Cajun accordion, arrange some French-Canadian folk tunes for it, and have possibly the best party ever.

I made gumbo with lobster, mussels and haddock this summer (living in Boston). Lobster was down to like $3.50 /lb so I was using it in everything for that month. It came out great. Lobster stock is easy and gets you tons of it as well.

Can I come in here and complain (Opelousas native) that I cannot stand Tobasco? It's red color and vinegar. It makes me sad, and it also makes me very angry. I would enjoy drywall more.
Now, LHS, or Louisiana Hot Sauce, -- http://www.louisianapepper.com/ is a good intro sauce. After that I like plowing through all the El Yucateco sauces, especially the Mayan recipe habanero one, Kutbil-Ik ('Crushed Pepper') -- http://www.elyucateco.com/english/p.../kubil-ik.html. That is an AMAZING finishing sauce for your fancy dishes.

I'd put recipes in the thread and be all wistful and poo poo, sharing secrets and flipping the bird at people who refuse to give it out, but both my grandmother and mother refused, to my face, multiple times, to write down anything for me. I wanted something to hand down to friends, mamo. Well, one can always eat a box of baklava from The Palace Cafe to ward off sadness.

Also a small shoutout to the world from Maya's Angels, if anyone's in the know.

Paradox Personified fucked around with this message at Jan 20, 2014 around 16:24

^^^^^ I'm not a fan of tabasco much either. Honestly I like it on Redbeans but that's it. Too much vinegar flavor for me. I've got a bottle of LHS I use now and then and it's pretty good. Never tried the other yet though!

Crosspostin from the what you made for dinner thread:

Mardi Gras comin around soon so it's time to start making King Cake.

Rolling out the dough, adding in butter, brown sugar, cinnamon

Before rising

Finished product

Missing from this is the glaze put on just out of the oven while hot that rests underneath the colored sugar. This is essentially a brioche dough with citrus flavor throughout and uses lemon juice as well in the underlying glaze. Tasted great although came out a little dry. I've been using a new oven for the past 4 months since moving to this place and my breadmaking still hasn't really quite gotten there with the new setup.

Thanks guys! It's such a good dish / easy to make and scale up or down for whatever occasion, I love it.

Edit: About adding too much liquid. I've done that a million times. I end up making sure the veggies have cooked off a good bit of the liquid but they don't have to be entirely dry and burning. Then I use a 1:1 ratio of liquid (beer/stock/water) to rice. Bringing that up to a low boil and then letting it cook in the oven instead of on the burner makes it much more consistent in my hands, but it took a long time to get it right reliably so don't fret.

Thanks guys! It's such a good dish / easy to make and scale up or down for whatever occasion, I love it.

Edit: About adding too much liquid. I've done that a million times. I end up making sure the veggies have cooked off a good bit of the liquid but they don't have to be entirely dry and burning. Then I use a 1:1 ratio of liquid (beer/stock/water) to rice. Bringing that up to a low boil and then letting it cook in the oven instead of on the burner makes it much more consistent in my hands, but it took a long time to get it right reliably so don't fret.

Thanks. I will try these tips next time.

Jambalaya is awesome cause if you add way to much stock you just made a cajun/creole soup that is still pretty drat tasty.

Guys, I'm making Gumbo for 40 kids at the homeless youth center I volunteer at and I am freaking out. I hope it's good.

I got like two whole chickens
3 Lbs of Sausage

Got my ingredients, filet etc..

I'm just freaking out though.

Don't sweat it. I used to make giant batches of it for college football tailgates.

Are you using their kitchen / pots and pans? Or are you using your own?

You can do a few things like cut and prep all your trinity the day beforehand and bag it. You can also make the dark roux and stop the browning with just a little stock and refrigerate that until the next day and add it in after you've browned the chicken and wilted the vegetables and sausage in the fat from that. Etc. If you have specific concerns PM me, I've regularly done batches for 50-75 people. The good thing is that gumbo scales up and down well. As long as you don't burn it to poo poo it's probably going to taste fantastic.

It went super well!! I fed 40 + People for like 75 cents a bowl. It was just chicken and sausage no seafood as we wanted to be careful budget wise and allergy wise.

The only thing I'd say was my roux wasjust complete poo poo. They have an electric oven and I just could not get the temp right. I'd either burn it or under cook but I had Okra and Filet so it was still thick. I ended up doing poor mans roux with just like a cup of flour and hot water to make it thicker.

Kids loved it, one kid came back for 5ths. Only one kid didn't like it, it was to spicey for him even though i thought it was bland. i ended up just like taking the meat and adding a cup of water to serve him though and he liked that.

Great day but exhausted but my hands smell AMAZING!! If you were to eat my hands right now they'd be delicious.

I made shrimp etouffe the other day and it was awesome. I'm pretty sure I could eat cajun/creole all loving day and get fat as hell.

Do people usually use fresh tomatoes in their etouffee? The pics I saw online were a bit more red and a much more smooth consistency than mine, which was kinda chunky. I diced up some tomatoes with everything else. Do you guys just dump in a tomatoe puree or stick a hand blender in your gravy?

I made shrimp etouffe the other day and it was awesome. I'm pretty sure I could eat cajun/creole all loving day and get fat as hell.

Do people usually use fresh tomatoes in their etouffee? The pics I saw online were a bit more red and a much more smooth consistency than mine, which was kinda chunky. I diced up some tomatoes with everything else. Do you guys just dump in a tomatoe puree or stick a hand blender in your gravy?

Personally I dice up a couple of raw tomatoes and then add 2 tbls or so of tomato paste. I've tried it with just raw tomato alone and you'd need to add quite a bit to get the nice orange coloration. I've found going with the paste just seems to work nice and I add in the raw ones for a little texture.

I made shrimp etouffe the other day and it was awesome. I'm pretty sure I could eat cajun/creole all loving day and get fat as hell.

Do people usually use fresh tomatoes in their etouffee? The pics I saw online were a bit more red and a much more smooth consistency than mine, which was kinda chunky. I diced up some tomatoes with everything else. Do you guys just dump in a tomatoe puree or stick a hand blender in your gravy?

Mario Batali is a strong proponent of canned tomatoes in all his (Italian) cooking. He notes that throughout his career, in a cooked dish, canned tomatoes taste the same as fresh. Now if it were tomatoes to be served raw in some fashion, yeah use raw. But I love using tomato paste out those fancy-rear end tubes, canned tomatoes from government commodities, it's all good. I give you permission to use canned tomatoes.
And for the love of the Holy Trinity, if you blend, please don't run it through a sieve and take out all the good stuff.

Can I ask my question again to beg if anyone has riz gras recipes in their family? My g-ma passed away a couple years ago and she always refused to write recipes for me, so I have to reverse engineer and I'm not skilled enough with fried rice to do so in this manner. In return, if anyone needs me to shake the Cajun phone tree, I can come up with some recipes of Cajun and/or Creole origin, or phone numbers for The Best Stop, or how Skeeter Ray's birth name is Jack and is really a nice guy and he and my mother formed The Tree Club around this one tree near Opelousas so they could all drink and party away from the prying eyes of the law....

Mario Batali is a strong proponent of canned tomatoes in all his (Italian) cooking. He notes that throughout his career, in a cooked dish, canned tomatoes taste the same as fresh. Now if it were tomatoes to be served raw in some fashion, yeah use raw. But I love using tomato paste out those fancy-rear end tubes, canned tomatoes from government commodities, it's all good. I give you permission to use canned tomatoes.
And for the love of the Holy Trinity, if you blend, please don't run it through a sieve and take out all the good stuff.

Can I ask my question again to beg if anyone has riz gras recipes in their family? My g-ma passed away a couple years ago and she always refused to write recipes for me, so I have to reverse engineer and I'm not skilled enough with fried rice to do so in this manner. In return, if anyone needs me to shake the Cajun phone tree, I can come up with some recipes of Cajun and/or Creole origin, or phone numbers for The Best Stop, or how Skeeter Ray's birth name is Jack and is really a nice guy and he and my mother formed The Tree Club around this one tree near Opelousas so they could all drink and party away from the prying eyes of the law....

I do not have any riz gras recipes myself. It wasn't a dish that my family ever really made that I recall.

Anyone got a good redfish / catfish / choupic courtboullion recipe? I've only got one and I never really get it tasting quite like I remember having it in other peoples homes.

With 7 types of homegrown or foraged greens (Collards, chard, dandelion, mallow, wild rocket, beet greens, and kale) and 3 kinds of smoked sausage (beef, double smoked pork kielbasa, and andouille), and chicken. Protip, mallow thickens just as well as file and okra. This was delicious albeit no longer lent friendly with all the sausage and chicken (gumbo z'herbes was originally served as a meatless gumbo for lent).

With 7 types of homegrown or foraged greens (Collards, chard, dandelion, mallow, wild rocket, beet greens, and kale) and 3 kinds of smoked sausage (beef, double smoked pork kielbasa, and andouille), and chicken. Protip, mallow thickens just as well as file and okra. This was delicious albeit no longer lent friendly with all the sausage and chicken (gumbo z'herbes was originally served as a meatless gumbo for lent).

That's beautiful.

Will update this post tomorrow as I just made a big pot of etoufee and am finishing / serving it for a book club tomorrow night.

Anyone got a good redfish / catfish / choupic courtboullion recipe? I've only got one and I never really get it tasting quite like I remember having it in other peoples homes.

I'm having a hard time parsing this. It's more of a technique than a recipe, and if you have the rough proportions already, why can't you adjust it to what you want to taste? Post your recipe? I'd be interested to see if it's weird or something. It could be missing some kind of anise flavor maybe? But it's a short stock - usually used for poaching fish. Why are you focusing on what it tastes like specifically?

I'm having a hard time parsing this. It's more of a technique than a recipe, and if you have the rough proportions already, why can't you adjust it to what you want to taste? Post your recipe? I'd be interested to see if it's weird or something. It could be missing some kind of anise flavor maybe? But it's a short stock - usually used for poaching fish. Why are you focusing on what it tastes like specifically?

Note in the 1st paragraph it draws the distinction between French courtboullion technique and a Louisiana courtboullion recipe which (I think) are two pretty different things. Might be part of the confusion? I've only had / tried to make the Louisiana variety so far.

Note in the 1st paragraph it draws the distinction between French courtbouillon technique and a Louisiana courtbouillon recipe which (I think) are two pretty different things. Might be part of the confusion? I've only had / tried to make the Louisiana variety so far.

Yep, that's what was confusing me. That's funny that Acadians would call it that. The "court" in courtbouillon means "short." Means a quick stock made for poaching a fish. Of course afterwards it's fish soup, and of course it wouldn't go to waste, but still calling it courtbouillon after you fortify it enough to be a real soup doesn't make sense in French.

Anyway, that's a thing with too many elements for us to guess what your neighbors' taste like. There's a million things. How did you do your roux? How dark was it? Did you use fish stock or water? DId you make the fish stock? Out of what? What creole seasoning did you use? What was different about your neighbors'?

Yep, that's what was confusing me. That's funny that Acadians would call it that. The "court" in courtbouillon means "short." Means a quick stock made for poaching a fish. Of course afterwards it's fish soup, and of course it wouldn't go to waste, but still calling it courtbouillon after you fortify it enough to be a real soup doesn't make sense in French.

Anyway, that's a thing with too many elements for us to guess what your neighbors' taste like. There's a million things. How did you do your roux? How dark was it? Did you use fish stock or water? DId you make the fish stock? Out of what? What creole seasoning did you use? What was different about your neighbors'?

Don't mean to be a dick but need details to work with.

Oh no worries.

Primarily I was just looking for other peoples recipes that they had used and liked just to try a different one than the singular recipe I've worked with. Mine wasn't bad per se, just not like I remembered it and I'm not really sure in what ways. This is trying to dredge up a comparison over 15 years so take that how you will.

I use a dark roux, homemade shrimp stock from shrimp heads and shells, onion tops, celery ends and 1/4 of a lemon, I use my own seasoning, just salt, black pepper and cayenne mixed in as I go. What I remember the most difference-wise is more depth among the umami flavors. I'm thinking maybe the fat they use for their roux might have been different. I tend to use peanut oil, maybe I should try butter instead and see if it improves. Or, barring that add some mushrooms to my stock. Anyway, it's not a flop of a recipe, just interested in other peoples take on it.

Louisiana courtboullion is not a recipe you come across that often but it's delicious.

Well now that I know what we're talking about I can make a suggestion or two.

First, in french cooking especially, a little anise (black licorice) flavor is usually used in fish soups. Not enough that it tastes like licorice - but as an undertone, it's awesome. Gives depth. Usually that's added in the form of a good splash of Pernod. I use that in pretty much any french style fish soup.

Second, you could add a carrot to your stock veg. Not much - too much carrot is a bad thing and you have your own flavor base that you like. But a little carrot would add a hint of sweetness.

Third, the seasoning - I don't hear "garlic." I'd put a whole head, halved, in the stockpot. Mushrooms wouldn't hurt, but it would overpower if you use the wrong ones, like shitake. You could add some umami without 'em by using some chinese black vinegar, soy sauce, or worcestershire sauce. Or even including a bit of kombu in your stock. But all of these things should be added in limited quantities, like the pernod. Taste, taste, taste.

Fourth, I don't think using butter would help. Making a dark roux you'd be a shitton more likely to burn it unless you clarified the butter, and even then, the flavor of a dark roux comes from the flour.

Fifth, you could roast your stock ingredients until they have a little color before adding to stockpot. That gives more depth from caramelization of the veg and maillard of the shrimp shells.

Well now that I know what we're talking about I can make a suggestion or two.

First, in french cooking especially, a little anise (black licorice) flavor is usually used in fish soups. Not enough that it tastes like licorice - but as an undertone, it's awesome. Gives depth. Usually that's added in the form of a good splash of Pernod. I use that in pretty much any french style fish soup.

Second, you could add a carrot to your stock veg. Not much - too much carrot is a bad thing and you have your own flavor base that you like. But a little carrot would add a hint of sweetness.

Third, the seasoning - I don't hear "garlic." I'd put a whole head, halved, in the stockpot. Mushrooms wouldn't hurt, but it would overpower if you use the wrong ones, like shitake. You could add some umami without 'em by using some chinese black vinegar, soy sauce, or worcestershire sauce. Or even including a bit of kombu in your stock. But all of these things should be added in limited quantities, like the pernod. Taste, taste, taste.

Fourth, I don't think using butter would help. Making a dark roux you'd be a shitton more likely to burn it unless you clarified the butter, and even then, the flavor of a dark roux comes from the flour.

Fifth, you could roast your stock ingredients until they have a little color before adding to stockpot. That gives more depth from caramelization of the veg and maillard of the shrimp shells.

Thank you! These sound like a big help. Definitely have never tried the anise in there before and I am thinking that might be one of the key things missing especially if combined with roasting the stock ingredients.

With 7 types of homegrown or foraged greens (Collards, chard, dandelion, mallow, wild rocket, beet greens, and kale) and 3 kinds of smoked sausage (beef, double smoked pork kielbasa, and andouille), and chicken. Protip, mallow thickens just as well as file and okra. This was delicious albeit no longer lent friendly with all the sausage and chicken (gumbo z'herbes was originally served as a meatless gumbo for lent).

That sounds and looks pretty freaking awesome and there's no excuse for me not having tried doing a gumbo z'herbes yet.

...except that I'm all up to my gullet in chickens. My wife decided last year that we were going to raise chickens for eggs, and I thought this was a good idea at the time. By December we were the proud caretakers of fifteen white leghorn chicks from an LSU Agriculture Department animal husbandry class thing (long story). Those chicks quickly became fully grown chickens. The ten hens haven't started laying yet, but drat did the five roosters start crowing at a young age. Baton Rouge has strict laws against roosters: none within the city limits because of the nuisance their noise makes. We knew we would need to do them in eventually, but when an Animal Control officer came to investigate a call about one of our neighbor's dogs and started asking about the rooster crowing from our house, we knew it was time. Last week, we "took care" of the two loudest culprits. One went into the freezer and one went into the soup pot, both after resting in the fridge for 24+ hours to tenderize. We did a very simple chicken soup for our first try: we stewed down the chicken for quite a while and then sauteed up some onion, carrot, and celery, threw the meat and vegetables together with some bay leaf and a handful of field peas, and let that simmer for a bit. Holy beejeezus was it good. I'm kind of a recovering vegetarian, so cooking animals is not really something I'm terribly experienced with, but I must have done something right because even though there wasn't a tremendous amount of meat on the rooster (him being a layer and not a meat chicken, and a rooster at that), the soup had an amazing flavor and... texture? mouthfeel? I don't know how to describe it, but the stock must have had a ton of collagen or whatever in it because it was thick but silky and when the leftovers hit the fridge for a while it became almost an aspic.

Anyway, I've got myself a rooster sitting in the freezer and a few more that will be going the way of the knife in the next week or two and I'm entertaining ideas about what to do next. I'm thinking something stewish, like a chicken sauce piquante. Of course I'll do a gumbo, jambalaya, and/or etouffee soon, but I want to do something different than what I'd normally do. Maybe something like a couvillion but with chicken instead of seafood? I even thought about trying to make smoked chicken sausage, but I've never done sausage before and it sounds like a lot of work for the smallish quantities that I'll be dealing with.

The local grocery store had tilapia and squid both on sale so i grabbed some and made a fish stew that ended up tasting a lot like blackened fish. It's been a long time since I had blackened fish, but I sauteed an onion, two bulbs of garlic, and a goodly amount of crushed red pepper to form the base, and that's just how it came out. Delicious.

What are the seasonings for blackened fish? Did I just stumble upon them?